


all of this can be broken

by callunavulgari



Series: Devil's Spoke [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Character Death, F/M, Female Stiles Stilinski, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Scott is a Good Friend, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 22:30:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4155432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’m with you until the end of the line, Scott thinks as the world gets dimmer around him. </p><p>Derek’s eyes glow red in the darkness.</p><p>Well, look at that, he thinks hazily. End of the line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all of this can be broken

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to hold your devil by his spoke. I wanted to do a chapter/scene from everyone's pov to see how they fared, because just because Stiles thinks they died doesn't mean they did, but uh, Scott wanted his 500 word scene to be a 3k ode to his friendship with Stiles. I wasn't really sure how to tag this, because while this is pretty concentrated on him and Stiles' friendship there are some definite Scott/Stiles feels going on. So. This is a thing that happened. I might still do Lydia's and the rest of the pack, so here's to hoping they don't blow up on me the way this did.

There was a point in Scott’s life where he thought that Stiles was _it_ for him. They’d known each other for four years at that point and Scott was just starting to look at girls _that_ way, and just… she was _Stiles_.

Stiles got him the way that no one ever had. She was always there with a spare inhaler when he needed it, like she spent just as much time in his brain as he did. She was _cool_ , okay, and liked comic books and video games and all the same music that he did. And maybe she was prickly as a rosebush and used her words like she meant for them to cut down to the arteries, but she was _his._

Stiles was his and Scott was hers, and that was just how it was.

All the boys said that she was too tall for a girl; that she was too skinny and talked too much. And maybe she did look a little bit like a boy when she cut all her hair off, but she was still pretty. She’d always been pretty to him, even back when they were running around in board shorts and t-shirts with mud soaking every inch of their bodies, and she always would be. Coltish and awkward, with boobs that were, in her words, “practically mosquito bites, Scott,” but that was okay. Scott was coltish and awkward too.

They were twelve years old and still growing, so the next time Jackson said something bad about Stiles, Scott puffed up and bet him that by the end of high school, Stiles would be prettier than Lydia. Stiles had smacked him over the head for it, because, “Oh my god, Scott, are you kidding me? Lydia is the most beautiful thing in the entire world, I don’t _want_ to be prettier than her.”

So Scott shut up about it, but still privately thought that he’d rather have Stiles anyday.

When they were thirteen, he ended up mentioning to his mom how him and Stiles would probably get married and have the best kids ever, and she’d looked at him, chewed on her lip for a while, and said, “Sweetie, have you ever asked Stiles if she likes boys?”

Because Stiles’ crush on Lydia Martin was legendary. The deputies at the station knew about it. So did the teachers at their school. Even the elementary schoolers knew about it. Lydia probably knew about it, even if she pretended that Stiles didn’t exist, but Scott had never really put it together, that maybe because Stiles liked Lydia Martin that meant she didn’t like boys at all.

When he asked Stiles about it the next day she’d munched on a carrot stick for a straight minute before she shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve liked Lydia since the fourth grade. I don’t really care about anyone else.”

“That’s stupid,” Scott had replied, frustrated and a little bit sad, but after Stiles socked him in the arm, he dropped it. Even if Stiles only liked girls, she was still his best friend. They’d be together forever, just maybe not as boyfriend and girlfriend.

A month later, the entire experience was all but forgotten, because Amy Jenkins came into class with C cups, and while she wasn’t as good as Stiles was, her knockers were pretty amazing, so that was good enough.

.

The first time that Stiles and Derek got in each other’s faces around Scott, he’d blinked. _That’s a new smell_ , he remembered thinking, but then he was too busy pushing Derek away to care about weird new smells.

Stiles hated Derek. She talked about it all the time.

He was a jerk. He was a stalker. A creep. A shitty alpha. He scared her and pissed her off, and “why can’t we just leave him on the side of the road to die, huh?”

Scott had worried about it for a little while, when he wasn’t thinking about Allison, but Stiles never smelled hurt whenever she’d been around Derek, so he wasn’t hurting her. Derek was just an asshole and everyone knew it.

The first time that he and Allison ended up _really_ making out in her room, he’d caught a whiff of the smell again. It was an earthy smell, heady and kind of musky, heavy on his tongue. It was a good smell, so he’d snuffled closer, around the curve of her neck to just behind her ear, where her hair was a little damp.

“What perfume are you wearing?” he’d asked. “I think Stiles has it too.”

Allison frowned for a moment. “I’m not wearing anything.”

“Huh,” he said. “Weird. Maybe it’s your shampoo or something.”

It wasn’t.

Allison’s shampoo smelled like fake (but still good) raspberries and she switched between three body washes: kiwi-melon, strawberry, and ‘unscented’.

Two days later, Derek pushed Stiles out of the way of a flying gremlin creature, and they’d both tumbled back against Stiles’ jeep. Derek’s arms caged her in — one hand pressed to the Jeep’s window next to her head, the other tucked against her hip — his body pressed close to hers; a protective shield between her and the rest of the world.

Stiles shouted and pushed him back, but not before Scott had caught a glimpse of the flush on her face, that same smell coming off of her in waves.

“Oh,” he breathed, heat rushing to his face.

Oh. Huh. Well, maybe it wasn’t just Lydia anymore.

He might have felt a twinge of something then. A little sadness, because that meant Stiles did like guys and that he’d missed his chance. A little irritation, because Derek? Really? Maybe Stiles didn’t like boys or girls at all, she just liked jerks. A little relief, because moving on from Lydia was still progress, no matter how unsavory her new crush was.

But that was fine. Stiles would always be a little bit his, the same way that he’d always be a little bit hers. Scott had Allison, and Allison was amazing. She didn’t know him like the back of her hand the way that Stiles did and didn’t like all the same music or play video games, but that was all right. She was perfect anyway.

.

When the nogitsune crawled inside of her, Stiles’ hair was long. She’d let it grow out over the summer, so it hung just above her shoulders, little wisps of it constantly getting in her mouth. She complained about it constantly, but never went for a haircut.

“Change is good,” she’d shrugged the one time he asked her about it. “I like it.”

The night that his best friend put a sword through his gut, she’d had those same wisps clinging to the corners of her mouth. Her hair was damp and she was entirely too pale, bruises under her eyes, but it was her eyes that scared him. The nogitsune took his best friend’s big brown bambi eyes and set them alight with madness,her mouth twisted up into a grin that he’d never seen on her before.

“It’s okay,” she’d purred, stroking his cheek with a laugh. Seething and terrified, well and truly backed into a corner, he averted his eyes. “Does it hurt? Hey, no, no, no. Look at me.”

With just the tip of her index finger she tipped his chin up, until his eyes met hers. She nodded, satisfied. “You should have done your reading, Scott. See, my kind… We feed off chaos. Strife. Pain.”

She shivered, twisting the blade in even deeper, and leaned in close.

“All that pain, Scott,” she whispered, breath cool on his cheek. “Give it to me.”

.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles manages before Kira and Mrs. Yukimura cart her off. She’s pale and sweaty, and looks like death warmed over. When she speaks, her eyes aren’t on Scott.

Allison looks small, laid out on the ground like that, too still, too pale, too—

Scott shivers and looks away, rubbing her blood between his fingers. It’s drying, so it comes off in flakes, but it’s easier to look at than Lydia, who’s hunched over Allison, sobbing without making a sound. Easier to look at than Chris, who’s milling around the perimeter or Isaac, who hasn’t said a word to anyone since Allison fell.

When he looks back at Stiles, she’s crying. Big, silent tears — nothing like the way Scott’s seen her cry before. Stiles is a messy crier. She heaves in big gulps of breath until she’s practically hyperventilating, her face red and blotchy as her face becomes streaked with snot and tears. Like this, she looks broken. It’s as if the tears are coming from something deeper, something that she can’t stop.

Scott won’t ever be over Allison. Kira’s pretty cool and he likes her, but Allison was… this huge, all encompassing thing. It hurts, an ache so deep that he’s sure he’ll die from it, but looking at Stiles now, it’s easy to remember that Allison was her friend too. And maybe the two of them didn’t have much in common other than him, but they laughed together. Cracked jokes at his expense. Had study dates and days that Allison drug Stiles to the mall because “Lydia’s exhausting to shop with sometimes.”

“It’s not your fault,” Scott tells her, and Stiles looks away from Allison, heartache etched into the lines of her face, and Scott feels like breaking.

“Hey, c’mere,” he says, gently, and opens his arm. Stiles’ breath hitches in a way that sounds painful and she sucks in a huge breath, all but collapsing into his arms. Only then do the sobs start.

.

“We aren’t talking about this,” Stiles tells him, pulling her shirt over her head without even bothering to look for her bra. Scott’s pretty sure it’s hooked over the lampshade, but he can’t bring himself to hand it to her, not when his aching brain is busy informing him of all the different ways he’d touched her the night before.

She squeaks a little bit when you first go down on her and gets bitey when she’s about to come. Years ago, knowing that might have made him feel on top of the world. Today it just makes him feel like an asshole.

“Stiles—” he starts, pausing when she shoots him a look of death.

“We aren’t talking about this,” she repeats, enunciating every word pointedly. “You fought with Kira. I broke up with Malia. We had too much to drink. That’s all that happened.”

“But—”

“No.” Stiles looks at him fiercely. She shouldn’t be intimidating right now — her makeup is smudged, she has pillow creases up and down her cheek, and the only thing she is wearing is a backwards t-shirt — but he knows exactly how terrifying she can be when she’s been wronged. “Say it with me, Scott. This didn’t happen.”

Scott swallows. “This didn’t happen.”

Stiles nods, taking a huge, tremulous breath. It shudders out of her as she bends down to grab her underwear. He has the thought that he was right, that warm autumn day in middle school when he made a bet with Jackson. She did grow up prettier than Lydia.

“Hey Stiles,” he calls as she’s heading out the door.

She turns, the morning sunlight catching in her hair, making it shine almost red. “Yeah?”

He swallows again, licking his lips. The room smells like them — like him and her and something that they’ve been building up to since the moment they met. “We’re good, right?”

Her eyes flood with warmth and she bends down — tosses his underwear at his head. “Course we are, dumbass.”

.

“I’m thinking about proposing to Kira,” Scott tells her one day in late August. It’s foggy outside, a chill in the air that’s forced everyone to don their jackets and hoodies a month early. _Winter is coming_ , Stiles had teased him this morning, widening her eyes and waggling her fingers in his face. He’d smacked her away and sighed, reluctantly allowing her to steal his hoodie.

Stiles snorts, looking up from her sandwich with a mischievous smile on her face.

“‘Bout damn time, buddy,” she grins. “Dibs on best man.”

Scott adopts an offended expression and says, “Duh. Of course, you’re my best man.”

He’s not surprised when Stiles tackles him sideways off his chair and tickles him until he squeals.

.

“I’m with you until the end of the line,” Scott whispers into Stiles’ hair. It’s so long now, long strands getting tangled between his fingers as he helps prop her up. There’s blood everywhere and Scott’s pretty sure that Stiles is hiding a knife wound somewhere, but her heart is beating steadily.

Derek raises an eyebrow at him in the rearview mirror and shakes his head when Stiles shrieks with laughter, bumping their shoulders together and then reeling back to punch him in the arm. “Don’t quote Captain America at me right now, you enormous asshole! Laughing hurts!”

“Yeah well, don’t go all Winter Soldier on me and I won’t have to. I don’t want my best friend dying on me anytime soon.”

Stiles chuckled, knuckling tears from the corners of her eye. “Not planning on it, buddy.”

.

By the time Derek finds him, it’s too late. He’s been bitten too many times, lost too much blood, broken too many bones. Maybe Lydia’s theory was right and he could survive without turning, but he’s only got so much blood in his body. Being a werewolf can’t fight off the infection and keep him alive.

He’s so close too. She’s _right_ there.

If Scott had just come back with her instead of staying on campus for an extra day, this would have been so simple. He wouldn’t have had to hitchhike all the way down from Berkeley, fending off terrified humans and hungry monsters alike.

They’re inside the town limits, and he’s so fucking close he can taste it. She’d hug him and cry on his shoulder, maybe shakily call him an idiot a few times with her fist curled in his shirt.

Telling her about mom would kill her, so Scott wouldn’t be able to do that. Maybe build up to it, after he got her and her dad out. She’d ask about the rest of the pack, too. About Liam and Lydia and Kira—

Maybe it would just be better to stay quiet.

“Hey, hey,” Derek murmurs, grabbing him by the biceps and lowering him down to the road. “You’ve gotta calm down. Let your body heal itself.”

Scott shakes his head frantically. His eyes are flickering red now, he just knows it. He’s too close to be able to control it, and he doesn’t want to hurt Derek, but he needs to get to Stiles before he—

“I can’t,” he sobs, clapping a bloody palm to Derek’s jaw. “She—”

Derek’s gaze sharpens. He looks like hell, Scott realizes. There’s blood all over him, his clothes torn, a still bleeding bite mark standing out on his upper arm. “She? Where’s Stiles? I thought she was at Berkeley with you?”

Scott shakes his head. “She came back early. Wanted to check on her dad and see if he’d come down with this stupid flu too.”

“It’ll be okay,” Derek tells him, making an attempt to smile. It comes out like a grimace. Derek's not an idiot. He knows what death looks like. “You’ll heal and then we can go get Stiles together.”

Scott just looks at him. He looks at the blood that’s been pooling around him since Derek lowered him to the ground and thinks about the blood trail that he’s left behind him. Stiles would say that he’s gone critical or something stupid like that.

Derek must get his point because he shudders and hisses, “You’re an _alpha_.”

“Being an alpha didn’t save your mom," Scott whispers gently. "It didn’t save your sister. We can still die, Derek, and you know that better than most.”

Scott thinks about Stiles’ face when Derek shows up without him. She won’t yell or scream. Probably won’t even say a word about it, she’ll just know. Maybe there was a time when Scott didn’t get there fast enough, but he always came for her eventually. She’s his. He’s hers. She'll know, when he doesn't come for her.

He doesn’t let himself think about her not being there. She's _Stiles_. Way too stubborn to die on him.

Carefully, Scott takes Derek’s hand and presses the tips of Derek’s fingers to his throat. He swallows. “Promise me you’ll take care of her. She won’t always need it, but just… promise me anyway. That you’ll look out for her.”

They may not always have seen eye to eye, but Derek’s a good guy. Scott can trust him with this. “She’ll kill me if she finds out,” Derek says calmly, letting his claws come out, until Scott can feel them pricking his skin.

Scott laughs. “No, she won’t. She’ll be sad, but Stiles… she knows me like the back of her hand. She’ll know that it was my call.”

Derek nods sharply.

“Make it fast, okay?” Scott asks, feeling so young all of a sudden. They’ve fought so hard to stay alive and lost so many people along the way. To die like this... It seems like such a waste. Zombies. The one damn thing that him and Stiles have been preparing for since they were kids. They just always figured they’d be together when it happened.

Scott thinks Derek might nod, and then those claws are pressing in, slicing through his skin like butter. He inhales, chokes on his own blood. Keeps choking on it, throat working as his heart pounds frantically away.

“I’m sorry,” he thinks he hears, but it’s too much. He’s panicking, pulse pounding in terror as his blood soaks Derek and the concrete below him.

 _I’m with you until the end of the line_ , Scott thinks as the world gets dimmer around him.

Derek’s eyes glow red in the darkness.

Well, look at that, he thinks hazily.

End of the line.

 

 

 


End file.
